Kai whau funded projects
Following is a selection of the Kai Whau’s previously funded projects:
2021
1000 Whānau Gardens, Arikitanutanu
1000 Whānau Gardens received funding to hold a three day informative and fun workshop, teaching about No Dig garden beds and looking into soil structure, seed saving, and networking to obtain resources for low cost of free, eg. cardboard, food scraps and wood pieces.
The participants would receive support and expertise (hands on follow up programme with each one) after the workshop to help participants to implement and continue their learnings. They would also receive a bag of soil and punnet of seedlings to start their journey.
Green Bay Community House
Green Bay Community House received funding for Wellness Wednesdays, where they brought delicious home-cooked kai to local senior residents, focussing on those at Haumaru housing (senior social housing). With rising food costs, attendees received a free hot, and affordable to make, meal, as well as a pack of all the ingredients needed and and the recipe to give them the confidence and information to replicate this at their own home
Odyssey House
Odyssey House received funding for their Kai Garden Training Programme – offering a training experience, alongside their Cafe, to people whose lives are affected by drug, alcohol, or other addiction challenges.
The funding was used to purchase outdoor furniture for potting and seed raising in their Kai Garden, as well as tables and chairs for training lessons.
2017
Green Bay Residents and Ratepayers Association
The Green Bay Ratepayers & Residents Association (GBRRA) own a hall in Portage Rd which is leased to the West Auckland Toy Library, who provide a great service to the communities of West Auckland.
GBRRA received funding to establish a garden that will be set up with seasonal edible plants and herbs. The garden will be positioned in the front yard of the hall, so when children arrive to pick up more toys they can see and interact with the garden.
Kelston Community Hub
Kelston Community Hub received funding to continue running their successful Budget Cooking classes, which had been started with Love Food Hate Waste funding.
The classes promote cooking meals by using leftovers or cheaper food, but still maintaining a highly nutritious meals. They encourage complete use of food to reduce household food waste. Participants cook on site and eat on site, and if there are leftovers they take food with them. There is no charge to participants.
Generation Ignite Food Bank
Every Friday, Generation Ignite Food Bank operates from the New Lynn Community Centre between 1 – 3pm (or until all parcels are gone). Lead by a team of volunteers, these parcels are distributed to individuals and families living within the Whau community. During this time, volunteers also set up tea & coffee, and some light lunch food (which they have made themselves), so that food bank recipients and rough sleepers can relax with good company and homemade food. Food bank visitors look forward to this meal every week, and so Generation Ignite applied for and received funding to grow this into a larger-scale Community Lunch.
Prepared and served by volunteers, Community Lunch will operate with a four week cycle, using four different meals; accompanied by hot and cold beverages and baking. For example – Build-a-Sandwich, fresh soup and bread, curry and rice, and ‘meat and three veg’. Generation Ignite’s vision to set up the Community Centre with tables and chairs, for everybody to sit down and enjoy their meal together.
Whau-Samoa Walking Community
The Whau-Samoa Walking Community was established in March 2016 for Samoans in the Whau area to make connection with others and to promote a healthy lifestyle and wellbeing by walking together and encouraging each other to come out of their comfort zones (homes). The group started with 30 regular walkers and has grown to be the largest Walking Samoans walking group of 200 registered numbers, walking 2 days a week (Friday and Saturday mornings for 2 hours).
Whau-Samoa Walking Community received funding for an event to share how to prepare traditional dishes without fat, sugar and salt that contribute to diabetes, high blood pressure, heart diseases, which so many Samoans are affected by. Special kaumatuas with experience and indigenous knowledge of preparing these traditional dishes over the years back home shared this knowledge with the rest of the group to take home.
Together We Are Avondale
Together We Are Avondale received funding to start a new initiative called Feed the Streets. The vision is to create an open, welcoming social space where local streeties and people in our community can cook and eat together. Representatives from services who can support our streeties into healthy independence will be invited to be part of the community meals. The plan is to start small and do it well, then open Feed the Streets up to the wider community, where it is hoped that our streeties will take ownership of cooking the meals and passing the food across the table to the wider community.
This initiative came out of Together We Are Avondale’s engagement with streeties in Avondale, where streeties shared that food brings everyone together, and that if they have eaten, they can get through the night on the street. Avondale streeties also shared that they really want to work and get ahead, they just need help to put those steps in place. If streeties are supported into more of a leadership role through Feed the Streets, it is envisioned that they will feel that they are contributing to the community and are valuable members of the community. Through Feed the Streets, ongoing relationships will be formed between our streeties, community and services.
2016
Avondale Community Action
Avondale Community Action received funding towards the costs of putting on a series of free workshops to teach recipes that are easy, healthy and affordable. These workshops are a local response to challenges of poverty, obesity and being time poor, and included showing people where to buy ingredients locally. The funding was used to cover the costs of tutors (who will be local people), and food and materials for the workshops.
A series of seven workshops took place on Tuesday mornings in October and November 2016, and were promoted through local budgeting services, WINZ and Housing New Zealand, as well as ACA’s existing networks.
The workshop attendees gave feedback that they appreciated learning about cooking dishes that are healthy but also affordable.
Green Bay Community House
Green Bay Community House received funding towards upgrades to their kitchen facilities. Installation of a new handbasin is a first step towards providing a local registered kitchen which can be hired for food preparation at an affordable rate by community groups as well as community events such as the Green Bay Bazaar, Wellness & Healing Fair, and Green Bay Street Food.
Once the kitchen is up to standard, Green Bay Community House aims to provide the community with access to good food and sharing knowledge through activities in the kitchen. This could include activities such as a soup kitchen in winter or a community picnic in summer, and offering basic cooking, baking and food preparation classes. It will also provide small food businesses with an opportunity to establish a link to the community by utilising the kitchen facilities.
The overall goal is to offer more social food events and activities at the Green Bay Community House to bring people together.
EcoMatters Environment Trust
EcoMatters received funding towards the cost of soil testing for their planned community garden expansion. EcoMatters wants to expand their community gardens in Olympic Park to meet community demand for growing space, but the land is a closed landfill, so professional soil testing was required to establish whether the land will be safe for food growing.
The soil test results showed that the soil in the proposed community garden areas is uncontaminated enough to meet the standards for organic certification. EcoMatters will continue to work with Auckland Council Parks to progress the proposed community garden expansion.
Chinese Kai Gardeners’ Hui
Homer Xu, an experienced garden facilitator and educator who has worked with Gardens4Health and Auckland Council, received funding towards the cost of running a hui for an online-based Chinese gardening group.
The hui took place on Saturday 27 August 2016 at the Synergy Community Trust on Portage Road, in Chinese language. Approximately 220 people attended. The hui included a shared lunch and three workshops on gardening topics. More than 200 packets of seeds were given away, and attendees traded seeds and plants and shared gardening knowledge.
Community Fruit Harvesting
Community Fruit Harvesting received $1000 towards the cost of purchasing a high quality food processor and two citrus presses, to assist their volunteers based in the Whau area in processing fruit picked from backyards and orchards into cordial and preserves. The preserves and cordials produced are distributed to food banks and organisations that help people in need in the community. In the Whau area these include Generation Ignite, Salvation Army New Lynn, Women’s refuges in Avondale and New Lynn, Age Concern Avondale, Baptist churches in Blockhouse Bay and Avondale, St Vincent de Paul New Lynn and Liberty Church in Avondale. The equipment has helped to reduce the amount of time involved in processing fruit, to reduce demands on volunteer time and enable more fruit to be processed. The project is ongoing.
Since the project began 244 jars of preserves and 86 bottles of cordial have been donated to the organisations (as listed above) in the Whau area. The new equipment has been very useful and there is approximately 92 litres of frozen citrus juice to be made into cordial and 20 bags of citrus chopped to be made into marmalade. Group cordial making sessions will be held in the Whau area before the start of the new citrus season to make cordial for distribution.
2015
Green Bay Street Food
In 2015, a collective of Green Bay community members working with the Green Bay Community House received funding towards the cost of obtaining market licenses for the Green Bay Bazaar and Green Bay Street Food events. Both events are aimed at increasing connection in the Green Bay community. The Green Bay Street Food Friday night food markets held at the Green Bay Community House since early 2016 have been very popular with the local community. Green Bay Street Food has provided opportunities for locals starting out with small food businesses, such as Rampant Coffee and Mama Tahina food truck. Both events are committed to being zero waste.
Avondale Community Action
Avondale Community Action (in 2015) received funding to purchase plates, cutlery and cooking equipment to create a ‘Community Dinners Kit’. The kit will be used by Avondale Community Action to host community dinners in Avondale, and will also be available for local groups wanting to host communal food events to borrow.
Encounter Hope Foundation
Encounter Hope Foundation received funding (in 2015) for new shelving for their relocated community food bank. The food bank distributes around 90 food parcels per fortnight in conjunction with community meals held at their new premises.
Food bank manager Brian Conquer said:
“We are finding that with the new shelving it is so much easier to see what is on the shelves and as they are deeper I am able to get more on each shelf. I am able to use the top shelves to more capacity than before. This means when I come to make up parcels I don’t spend as much time trying to find and get goods out of the shelves. We do appreciate the grant and how much it has helped us to help people in the Community.”
WISE Collective
WISE Collective received funding towards the costs of hosting a multi-ethnic community meal in Avondale. WISE Collective collaborated with Avondale Community Action to hold the event at Avondale Community Centre in July 2016. Around 100 people attended, most of them refugees and migrants, including many children as it was the school holidays. The event involved sharing games and entertainment from the various cultures, followed by a communal meal in including dishes from many cultures.